Author name: admin8206

Lord, worried, uncertain, full of questions, we are with the disciples at the hour when their capacity to follow you on this painful path on which you are embarking is at stake.

May our hearts find in you the assurance of a fidelity that is not primarily ours, but yours.

May your peace strengthen all those who today are still going through their Passion. May their faith not fail, and may ours be more secure…

We beg you, you who are not ashamed to call us your sisters and brothers, Sons of the Living God!

Lord Jesus, you who said you had no stone to lay your head on, you who for months knew only the dust of the roads and the exhausting days of welcoming the lost crowds, now you ask your disciples to prepare a place for you, an upper room where you can stop, where you can share the Passover with friends. You long for this final moment for a few more essential words, testamentary gestures…

And yet you know what we are… disciples still so immature, so unprepared to hear you, full of contradictions and even dissensions.

This place, this moment to offer you, may your Spirit give us the power to receive it. May it pacify us, may it pray in us, and open this prayer to all those whom you wish to invite this evening, Jesus, you who see your Hour coming.

In the course of the Gospels, we have walked with you, Lord Jesus, and here we are ready to open our hearts to you and hear you say to us: It is with you that I wish to celebrate Easter.

Give us the grace to be able to welcome you, beyond our refusals and our mediocrity, and to recognise in you, disarmed God, fragile God, the eternal yes of the tenderness of the Father who will never cease, whatever we do, to wait for us, to hope for us, in the infinite patience of the Spirit.

No one can reach the dawn without passing through the path of the night.

Lord, God of our Fathers, throughout this Lenten season, you have tilled our hearts with your Word.

In these Holy Days when we are once again approaching the Paschal Mystery, give us the grace to know how to accompany your Son.
– Faced with temptations in the desert, Jesus uses only one weapon against the Adversary: the Word. Blessed be you, O our God!
– On Tabor, when Peter, James and John learn that their Master is threatened with exodus and Passion, they see him bathed in an Easter light, consolation and encouragement for their faith as disciples and for ours: Blessed be you, O our God!
– At the edge of a well, at the same time as the Samaritan woman, Jesus led us into the long work of the Word exchanged, the work of giving birth that sets each of us on the road to our deepest thirst, imprinted with your own Life in us: Blessed be you, O our God!
– Like the blind man, we want to leave the darkness that holds us captive, to follow Him who is already drawing our misfortunes into His victory and denying them the power to harm us: blessed be you, O our God!
– In the company of the sisters of Lazarus, we call down on our world the power of the Word of Jesus, which goes even into death. It makes life out of what is dead: blessed be you, O our God!

Lord God, she must have trembled, Mary, on that eve, because more than anyone else she felt the fragility of the enthusiasm that was stirring up the crowd. Like every woman, she sensed.

To all those who today are afraid, who ache for those they love, give them the support of a strong woman.

We ask this in the name of Jesus, in the fidelity of his Spirit who prays in us, as he prayed in Mary.

Blessed are you, Jesus, gentle and humble Messiah, for welcoming the acclaim of this crowd of little people.

It is true that they do not know the Law, they will not reproach you for breaking the Sabbath, they do not trap your every word, but they have seen your gestures, they have drunk your words, they have touched your cloak, their hearts have melted before the healings…
So you are happy, for a moment, to bathe in their joy, to welcome their spontaneous ovation: Hosanna, Son of David, our King!

May it prefigure the one that all ages, all lands, have always been waiting for, the one where, together, we will all stand before you and acknowledge: Yes, Jesus, you are the one who was and who is to come, the Prince of Peace for ever!

In our journey through the desert, we have come to a halt. Lord Jesus Christ, we need you to rest and quench our thirst.

For all around us, and even more so in the distance, the earth is dry from not having enough rain, the earth is burnt by huge fires, devastated by bombs or earthquakes – and how many hearts throughout the world are dried up by the desolation of daily life or the anguish of tomorrow…

In you we recognise the One who illuminates the dry places in us so that we can work on them, and who, by his own journey and the gift of his life, offers us living, purifying and thirst-quenching water, ready to flow over the barren lands to irrigate the future.

For this oasis of hope at the edge of your well, Lord Jesus, we bless you.

Lord, teach us to make integral ecology our own.

Draw us out of the torpor of a light and insidious irresponsibility towards the state of the world.

May this lucidity, far from making us give up, give us the necessary impetus to change the world step by step, with your help!

The wind is blowing hard.

The storm refreshes us, and scares us a little, too.

Lord, what if it was our sister and mother earth that was crying out in revolt?
So much plunder, pollution and abuse committed against her!

And, why not, what if it was your anger, Good God, who no longer knows how to make us hear your call, your warning:

“My beloved children, you are on the wrong path.
Change your ways of producing and consuming, of housing and feeding yourselves, of working and travelling!

Yet, Lord, do not cease to speak to us, to call us and to hope in us.